


New York's Great in the Fall

by loquacity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ableist Language, Established Relationship, Gen, Guns, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other, References to Drugs, sort of established anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquacity/pseuds/loquacity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Non-chronological snapshots of life as Bucky fights to be Bucky again, with help from some superheroes, a dumb blond from Brooklyn, and some really shitty coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New York's Great in the Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluandorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluandorange/gifts).



**0.**

He’s dizzy, and disoriented, and high as a _goddamn kite._ That’s actually a change for the better, from what he usually is. What is he usually? Probably something.

 

Have you ever frowned for a very, very long time, and suddenly, against your will, almost, something makes you smile, and your face hurts, but it feels good? Because of all that frowning, and now it’s a smile? That’s what this feels like. Except, accompanied by a repetition of numbers.

 

Three two five five seven oh three eight. Three two five five seven oh three eight. Three two five five seven oh three eight. Huh. It’s everywhere.

 

Images fade in and out, and he flinches at a firework behind his eyelids.

 

Three two five five seven oh three eight.

 

The tinny whine of a drill is going somewhere in the distance, to the left. Really, really far, though. Something’s cold, but that probably doesn’t matter? Not much of anything matters right now.

 

Drei zwei fünf fünf seiben null drei acht.

 

Suddenly, a jolt of ice cold in his shoulder. Ow, okay, that one might matter. Why does it matter again? Why does he feel like he’s falling? The fireworks are gone, where’s the snow?

 

Is someone shouting? …who the hell’s Bucky, again?

 

Tri dva pyat’ pyat’ sem’ nol’ tri vosem’.

 

Metal gleams under the surgical lighting, blinding.

 

**I.**

When his thoughts belong to him again, Bucky really starts to _think_ about his damn arm. There is an absolute novelty to free thought he never wants to forget. He forgets a lot of things, unfortunately. It almost makes the novelty of free thought, of comprehension and opinion a new treasure every single time.

 

So, his thoughts tend to default to his arm. Well, not _his_ arm, but the metal monstrosity that either retains too much heat or too much cold and can be used as a weapon to freeze the bed-warm feet of the unsuspecting Steves of the world.

 

Deprogramming Soviet super soldiers takes a decent amount of time. He has a lot of time to think about the arm. If he’s in a room, he could be somewhere else entirely in his head. He loses time every now and again, fortunately most frequently on quiet, peaceful days around the Tower. But he loses time, and he’ll blink, and the warm morning sun has moved across the room and is a burning orange sunset.

 

He needs adrenaline to stay focused, they quickly learn. It helps him. It comes with a whole different set of issues (how to keep Bucky around and the Winter at bay), but it keeps him _aware._ Keeps him _alive._ A fire fight might mean violence and death (Bucky’s job) and worrying about civilians (Steve’s job, sometimes Stark’s), and absolutely wrecking shit (Banner, but generally everybody), but it means fresh air and wind whipping past and the sounds of shouting coming from outside your head for once.

 

Because, if he’s not out there, he’s probably in here, thinking about his arm. He’s pretty sure people check on him (read: Steve, Sam and Natasha check on him; early on, only Steve) by the way they look pleasantly surprised when he reacts to the door cracking open, light spilling into the dark of the room. The lights are normally on if he snaps to awareness after sunset. Someone’s watching over him.

 

Watching over him while he thinks about his damn arm.  

 

**II.**

It has force feedback. Actually, fairly precise force feedback. It detects a friendly slap on the shoulder from Stark, a prod in the elbow from Barton, a firm handshake from Fury. It has an artificial nervous system, but it seems to work in varying strokes. It feels the impact, the crumbling, the giving of punching concrete, but feedback from skin is missing. He’s certainly punched something hard, but it could be anything, if his eyes weren’t open. Could be concrete, could be the Hulk.

 

He learns fairly quickly not to punch the Hulk.

 

**III.**  

It has flawless control. It can pick up a single crumb on a sleek marble counter from a burnt piece of toast unceremoniously eaten by Barton. It can hold its own in a wrestling match with Thor’s non-dominant hand (before Banner points out the burning smell and Tony sees the metal biceps sparking).

 

It can, in fact, cup Steve’s cheek in the heat of a summer night, and slowly, coolly, run a thumb along his lips. It scared him the first time he did it. Other than feeling the heat of Steve’s breath, he feels nothing.

 

Steve has to do a little more to than just kiss the abyss of erasure away.

 

The arm cannot control or prevent a “factory reset” as Stark likes to call them. It can certainly trigger them.

 

No one’s really good at stopping them, but they haven’t had to try in a while now, and that’s probably good.

 

**IV.**

It attracts the attention of most kittens. If he wiggles his fingers right, it sends the little shits in dizzy, random circles, trying to catch the reflections of the light.

 

It was worth setting off a metal detector earlier in the day just to see the look on Steve’s face in the pet store when he pulled that glove off.  He even cracked a bit of a smile himself when a scrawny tabby fell on its ass trying to catch a glimmer on the ceiling of the cage.

 

**V.**

It detects temperature.

 

It feels the white-hot heat of scraping against asphalt, thrown forty feet back down the on-ramp to the freeway whatever alien asshole has decided to hole up on this week.

 

It detects coffee being spilled on it, the steam from a dishwasher, setting it on a sizzling griddle.

 

It detects being frozen solid in place for about twelve hours before it finally freezes through. Then, Bucky can’t feel much of anything in his arm, and a little after that, the hypothermia warnings on the sensors Stark stuck on him start to blare. He doesn’t feel terribly cold, though.

 

It thaws just fine.

 

It does not register pain, however, which can be a little bit of trouble. He registers pain _near_ the arm, as in, Ow, This Jerk Is Twisting The Arm Behind My Back And So My Shoulder Hurts. But, not, Oh Would You Look At That The Metal Palm Melted Off, That Should Probably Hurt, kind of pain. This is the way Stark describes it to him, anyway. He just nods and curiously watches Stark repurpose the palm of a failed Ironman gauntlet.

 

The arm is now shiny on the outside, but a matte, gunmetal gray in the palm.

 

**VI.**

It can, in fact, crush human bone with little effort.

 

Hulk bone is not human.

 

He has to _remember_ to not punch the Hulk.

 

Though, now that he really thinks about it, that was the last time they had any problems with “factory resets,” wasn’t it?

 

Maybe punching the Hulk solves some problems.

 

**VII.**

First, he’s asleep, and then he’s not. A stunning realization, certainly. It’s more that he’s Not Asleep in a bed he doesn’t recognize that is problematic about the whole situation.

 

Was he captured? Compromised?

 

He’s not bound, he finds as he sits up cautiously.

 

He immediately shifts to survey his surroundings, eliminate danger and make a quiet escape, when a shock of blond hair in the dark next to him jolts something.

 

“Ah,” he murmurs into the dark, staring at the figure slouched in a nearby chair.

 

Steve. The hair color connects with the name, which connects with blue, the military, a shield, and then swimming deep under water and dragging this dumb sunovabitch onto shore—

“You among the living, now?” Steve chuckles a little, and Bucky sucks in a silent breath, startled. “Lemmie hit a light. Show you I’m not armed or anything.”

 

Ah. Before the swimming, there was a sniper rifle. But after the sniper rifle was a handgun and a knife on a bridge, and another altercation high in the air? That last snippet didn’t make sense.

 

The lights snap on and Bucky refuses the reflex to blink, staring dead ahead at the man across the room.

 

“Okay, so.” Steve spins around once, twice, hands in the air. He’s in a tight white shirt and standard-issue khakis and has no odd quirks of movement. Probably not armed.

 

“Good.” The voice that rumbles out of Bucky’s throat doesn’t sound entirely like his. Hoarse, scratchy, strained.

 

He suddenly remembers some different conflict, involving lightning and something huge and green, and guns didn’t do a hell of a lot. He wasn’t entirely on any side in the fight, not that he could remember, but he’d covered Steve out of something like muscle memory. Guy on his left, down. Guy behind him while he’s punching something, gone. Old game. Played it before.

 

He’d taken some kind of concussive blow. There’s a memory somewhere of getting patched up and being too addled (or maybe drugged?) to put up a fight, and now, he’s sitting in Captain America’s bedroom. Or something. He feels like this is his room, though.

 

There’s a moment of awkward silence, Bucky surveying his surroundings like a cornered stray and Steve watching him, calm.

 

“Steve,” Bucky says, repeating the name as it comes back to him again.

 

A smile lights up golden boy’s features like dawn, and a little tension eases out of Bucky’s shoulders. A synapse finally fires correctly somewhere in his head.

 

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” He says it quietly, with a breath of laughter. “Welcome back to Stark Tower.”

 

**VIII.**

It does not register pleasure. Sure, fine. That makes perfect sense.

 

What’s _frustrating_ is that it does not register types of touches that he finds pleasure in, but are not necessarily _pleasurable_ of their own accord. Kissing: pleasurable of its own accord. Lazily drawing your fingertip across the palm of your sleepy lover’s hand and admiring the softness of his palms: a pleasure to behold.

 

He doesn’t get to marvel at the feel of Steve’s skin on that arm, but thank God he’s got the rest of himself.

 

The lack of sensation in the arm still frustrates him, though.

 

**IX.**

It holds the heart of a dumb blond. Well, it holds half the heart of that dumb blond. The flesh-and-blood-and-definitely-Bucky hand holds the other half. Cupped together, they can hold Steve’s heart a little closer.

 

He wonders, belatedly, if this is a gory metaphor.

 

Hours after that, he realizes he’s created a metaphor. That he’s getting poetic, and he has to remember to ask Steve if that was a Bucky Thing or if that was Something Weird.

 

Steve doesn’t particularly care which, unfortunately, just kisses him for the thought. Well, the kiss was worth a non-answer, he guesses.

 

**X.**

The first emotion he is conscious of experiencing on his own is wonder, even if he keeps it to himself.

 

It is a crisp morning in mid-October, and he has been coaxed out of the tower “to retrieve donuts like normal human beings,” as opposed to having Stark have them delivered. (Stark can have anything delivered.)

 

It is probably his second or so outing other than battle since his deprogramming, therapy, whatever you wanted to call it. The overstimulation the first time had put him on edge, he didn’t have anything to focus on. No goal, directive. So, he focused on everything for just about as long as he could stand before shutting it all out. He blinked back into awareness about six hours later, sitting calmly on the floor of his quarters, as Steve stuck his head in to check on him.

 

Today’s different. It’s nice. New York’s great in the fall. Orange trees, piercing blue sky, noise and bustle. He takes a sip of the absolutely awful coffee from the donut place, and that’s when it hits him.

 

His mind is absolutely clear. And he has _opinions._

 

New York’s great in the fall. This coffee tastes like mud.

 

They’re _his own opinions._ No one else’s. No one suggested any of this to him, nothing beyond “hey, put on a jacket, we’re going outside.” Steve’s busily munching away on a donut, he hasn’t said a damn thing about how nice of a day it is.

 

No one’s here to paint over his thoughts and write their own graffiti all over the damn place. It’s not like he hasn’t had them _before,_ he’s been capable of decisions and thought and emotion and whatever else even while the Winter Soldier. But there was a disconnect between what was his and what was someone else’s. It all blurred together until it was muck, a sludge in his head. Sometimes he got through it. If he did, there was someone standing at the other side to dump more slop on him, or erase him entirely.

 

It’s _incredible._ He belongs to himself, to no one else, and he’s where he is because he wants to be.

 

“This coffee tastes like mud,” he says quietly, and Steve snorts with laughter.

 

See, he _wanted_ to say that.

 

Holy hell, what a thing thought can be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Very first attempt at any of these characters, for my friend Blu, who was having a nasty evening. I meant to write one paragraph and it ended up over two thousand words.


End file.
